CHAPTER V: Social and National Policy

While the Socialists declare at their Congresses, beginning with the Congress of Limoges, that they cannot ally themselves, even temporarily, with one of the sections of the Republican bourgeoisie, why do the members of the Radical Party desire to carry out a Socialist policy? Why does M. Clemenceau denounce the capitalist régime, which he “has attacked and is going to attack again,” and proclaim himself a “Socialist”? Why does he adopt as his programme a portion of the working programme of the Gotha and Erfurt Congresses, and of the Harve Congress in 1880, as drafted by Karl Marx and proposed by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue?

The programme of the Radical-Socialist Party, adopted by M. Clemenceau, is:—

• (1). The purchase of the Western Railways, for the State must work the railways in imitation of Prussia. This is pure State ownership and not Socialism.
• (2). A personal and progressive income tax, still in imitation of Prussia, whereby the principles of the French Revolution are combined with a form of government which has preserved a system of voting by classes for nearly half a century, under the constitution of 1850.
• (3). Old age pensions, still in imitation of Germany, but in an aggravated form, which is driving us to total failure in social policy so called, or else in national policy.

Which of these should be sacrificed to the other?

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